BLAXPLOITATION FILMS

Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States in the 1970s. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for a black audience, although the genre’s audience appeal soon broadened to cross racial and ethnic lines. The term itself is a portmanteau of the words “black” and “exploitation,” and was coined in the early 1970s by the Los Angeles National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) head, and ex-film publicist Junius Griffin. Blaxploitation films were the first to regularly feature soundtracks of funk and soul music as well as primarily black casts. Variety credited Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, released in 1971, with the invention of the blaxploitation genre while others argue that the Hollywood-financed film Shaft, also released in 1971, is closer to being a blaxploitation piece and thus is more likely to have begun the trend. Later movies such as Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Superbad (2007), Inglourious Basterds (2009) and Undercover Brother (2002), as well as Tarantino’s Jackie Brown (1997), Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (2003), and Death Proof (2007) feature pop culture nods to the Blaxploitation genre. I used to go see them in the 70’s late night around midnight they were showing because those fins always pushed the envelope on violence and sex. They were badly acted but violent as hell and bloody . The audience got into it and yelled at the guy on screen kill him etc…. they were interacting with the film. Back then they were cheap as hell I only paid $3.50 to get in.

COFFY (1973)

A film by Jack hill

Cast: Pam Crier, Booker Bradshaw, Robert Duqui.

Here is a great one for you there. Here is a Nurse who by day works in a hospital and by night kills drug dealers because one on them gave the drug that killed her sister. I love the dialogue in this one as well as the music. I love those 70’s films because they had this cheesy generic music that works well into the movie. Pam Crier is fantastic in this one. she kick ass. They reverse the role in this film that is never been done before she play the hero before it was a man who plays the hero, and she kills every drug dealer in this one because her sister who died of a drugs overdose. Look out she out for revenge. Here is a beautiful actress who became a star because of the blaxeploitation film were being made in Hollywood. Hollywood finally understood that even white people is going to see a black film. And a lot of them were made. Thank got for Tarantino who made an homage film called death proof and planet terror with his friends Rodriguez with actors that can act.